WARSAW (AFP) -- More than 5,000 migrants have been rescued in the Mediterranean since Friday, according to Frontex, the European Union's border agency.The rescue mission, which started Friday, focused on a group of Libyan migrants travelling aboard 25 boats, said Frontex, adding that five other operations were in place to rescue another 500 migrants. According to the agency, rescuers discovered 17 bodies during the operation, confirming the toll given by the Italian coastguard. British, Maltese,

World News May 31, 2015

LONDON (AFP) -- Barclays has launched an internal review into whether its accounts were used for corrupt payments by FIFA officials, a banking source told AFP on Sunday.It comes after the British bank was named in a US investigation into corruption at football's world governing body, in which seven FIFA officials were arrested this week in Zurich.The source would not give any further details, and a Barclays spokesman declined to comment.Barclays was among three banks with British headquarters na

World News May 31, 2015

BEIRUT (AFP) -- The UN envoy to Syria condemned regime bombing of civilian areas as "totally unacceptable" after more than 90 people were killed in a day of heavy air raids.Across the border in Iraq, pro-government forces pressed their operation aimed at sealing off jihadists who captured the city of Ramadi two weeks ago.In Syria, barrel bombs dropped by President Bashar al-Assad's helicopters killed 71 civilians, including children, in the northern province of Aleppo on Saturday, a monitoring g

World News May 31, 2015

KATHMANDU (AFP) -- Thousands of children, many still traumatised from losing homes and loved ones, returned to class Sunday as Nepal's schools formally reopened following a devastating earthquake that claimed more than 8,600 lives. In many cases children in uniform walked through rubble to attend lessons in temporary classrooms made of bamboo or in tents on playing fields, after their schools were destroyed or badly damaged in the quake that struck on April 25.Eight-year-old Sahaj Shrestha clung

World News May 31, 2015

TOKYO (AFP) -- Seismologists Sunday warned Japan to stay vigilant for the next "Big One" after a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the quake-prone nation, injuring a dozen people.Buildings swayed for around a minute in Tokyo and its vicinity Saturday night as the quake struck at a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean 874 kilometres south of the capital, the US Geological Survey said.Despite its power, there was no risk of a tsunami as its epicentre was a deep 676 kilometres b

World News May 31, 2015

HYDERABAD, India (AP) -- Despite hopes that weekend thundershowers would help end a raging heat wave in southern India, the rain brought only limited relief as the death toll since mid-April approached 2,200.Officials said Sunday that the intense heat was likely to continue for another day in worst-hit Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states.Daytime temperatures hovered between 45 and 47 degrees Celsius in some parts of the two states over the weekend, 3 to 7 degrees Celsius above normal, said K.Y.

World News May 31, 2015

Australia will continue its surveillance flights over the disputed South China Sea and insists on unhindered access to the area’s trading routes, Defence Minister Kevin Andrews said.“We have been surveilling the area for close to thirty five years,” Andrews said on Sunday in an interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La security forum in Singapore. “We are doing it currently and we will continue to do it in the future.”Andrews would not be drawn on whether Australia may fly planes over reefs t

Foreign Affairs May 31, 2015

Police have sought an arrest warrant for a South Korean man on charges of burning the national flag during last month's ceremony marking the first anniversary of the Sewol ferry sinking, officials said Sunday.The 24-year-old man, only identified by his surname Kim, was accused of burning the national flag during the April 18 rally in downtown Seoul and trying to damage a police vehicle, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said. Thousands of people attended the ceremony to mark the first anniver

Social Affairs May 31, 2015

GENEVA (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in bike crash Sunday, apparently after hitting a curb, and scrapped the rest of a four-nation trip that included an international conference on combating the Islamic State group.Kerry was in stable condition and in good spirits as he prepared to return to Boston for further treatment with the doctor who previously operated on his hip, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said. He said X-rays at a Swiss hospital confirmed that

World News May 31, 2015

MADRID (AFP) -- Britain, Germany and Turkey grounded their Airbus A400M military transport planes Sunday after one crashed in Spain, killing four people, as authorities hailed passers-by who rescued two survivors.The pair, a mechanic and an engineer, were in stable but serious condition at hospitals in Seville, the capital of the southwestern region of Andalusia.The plane, due for delivery to the Turkish air force in June, crashed in a field just north of Seville's airport on Saturday after hitt

World News May 10, 2015

BEIJING (AP) -- China cut interest rates Sunday for the third time in six months to boost sluggish economic growth and announced that it is giving banks more flexibility in setting rates paid to depositors in a new step to make its financial system more market-oriented.The central bank's rate cut reflects the communist leadership's growing urgency about reversing a deepening slump that threatens to cause a politically dangerous spike in unemployment.Economic growth has fallen to its lowest level

World Business May 10, 2015

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- South Africa's main opposition group on Sunday chose its first black leader at a party congress, seeking to expand its appeal in a country whose ruling party has dominated since the first all-race elections in 1994.  Mmusi Maimane was elected by delegates of the Democratic Alliance party who convened in the city of Port Elizabeth. He replaces Hellen Zille, a white who is the premier of Western Cape province, the only one of nine South African provinces that is controlled by

World News May 10, 2015